As already known, children in a motor vehicle must sit in booster seats suitable for ensuring their safety. These booster seats are arranged on the rear seat and securely fastened to the vehicle body by means of releasable coupling systems.
Usually, these coupling systems are of the so-called ISOFIX type. Being standardized, these systems allow fastening various types of booster seats, having different manufacturers and shapes, also based on the age of the children on board.
When removed from its position of use, the booster seat is normally moved out of the vehicle passenger compartment and stored in the boot or somewhere out of the vehicle.
However, the size and weight of child seats discourages their frequent handling, and therefore, although easily releasable, they are often left in their position of use even when no children are on board.
It follows that the presence of the booster seat on the rear seat causes the adult passengers various inconveniences due to a reduction in the useful space in the rear passenger compartment of the motor vehicle.
For this reason, available configurable seat solutions comprise a seat portion having a fixed part and at least a removable or more generally movable part. The movable part can be fastened, e.g. by means of ISOFIX anchoring elements, according to two distinct configurations, one of which is raised if compared to the other.
In the raised configuration, the movable part of the seat portion is arranged at a height suitable for forming a booster seat for children with the back of the seat.
On the other hand, when said movable part is in the other configuration, an adult passenger can sit on it without having the visual or tactile perception of sitting on a removable component, or in any case, a component separated from the remaining parts of the seat.
Solutions of the aforesaid type can be approved in classes Q6 and Q10 according to the European regulation ECE129/2012 and subsequent amendments, i.e. in groups 2 and 3 according to the European regulation ECE44/2005 and subsequent amendments.
EP1721777 A2 describes a configurable seat of the previously described type. More in detail, the document EP1721777 A2 describes a seat having a seat portion consisting of two side cushions and of a removable central portion, so that it can be arranged over one of said side cushions to be used as a booster seat for children.
Although the known solutions of the aforesaid type are versatile, reduced in size and aesthetically appreciable, there is a need to improve them to increase the child safety level.
In particular, according to these known solutions, the side restraint function of the child in the event of collisions is only performed by the vehicle safety belts.
The Applicant has experimentally verified that when a side impact occurs on a vehicle side, safety belts only marginally contribute to stop a side displacement of the child. In fact, due to the forces of inertia arising from the impact, the child tends to move towards the point where the impact occurred. When the impact occurs on the side furthest from the child seat, the child moves in particular towards the centre of the seat, in spite of the safety belts being correctly fastened around the child and the seat.